Ivory Coast Customs Workers' Strike Blocking Cocoa Exports, Union Says

A three-day strike by customs workers in Ivory Coast over benefits that have been withheld is blocking exports of cocoa from the world’s top grower of the beans, the head of the union organizing the action said.

Workers are in the second day of the protest that includes blocking deliveries of goods, said Michel Delihisson, secretary general of the Union for the Defense of Rights for Customs Officers. Some service has been maintained for shipments to and from the airport in the commercial capital, Abidjan, he said.

“All goods have been blocked, which includes cocoa,” Delihisson said in a phone interview. “If any cocoa is leaving the country, it will be cocoa that hasn’t been certified by customs.”

Union members are striking over the withholding of monthly bonuses of 35,000 CFA francs ($70) per month which workers are meant to receive on top of their salaries.

The strike was meant to end today after the union met with the West African nation’s Finance Ministry, Delihisson said.

“We were willing to compromise after speaking with the finance minister, but because the director general refuses to engage us in discussions, we will carry on striking as originally planned,” he said, referring to Colonel Major Alphonse Mangly. A spokesman for Mangly declined to comment when contacted by telephone.

To contact the reporter on this story: Monica Mark in Abidjan via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

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